Medical personnel help a man wounded in a blast at the Somali National Theater in Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, April 4, 2012. An explosion Wednesday at a ceremony at Somalia's national theater killed at least 10 people including two top sports officials in an attack by an Islamist group on a site that symbolized the city's attempt to rise from two decades of war. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

In deadly Mogadishu blast, 10 journalists wounded

April 4, 2012 5:29 PM ET

New York, April 4,
2012--At least 10 journalists were reported injured, several of them
seriously, when a bomb ripped through Somalia's newly reopened national theater
in Mogadishu, local journalists told CPJ. The blast, for which the militant
insurgent group Al-Shabaab took responsibility, killed several people,
including two of the nation's top sports officials, news
reports said.

The attack came five
minutes into a speech by Prime Minister Abdiwelli Mohamed at a ceremony marking
the anniversary of Somali National
Television. Witnesses said they believed a suicide bomber had carried out
the attack, but Al-Shabaab said it had planted the explosives in advance, The New York Times reported.

"It was awful.
People were running in all directions in stunned panic," one journalist told
CPJ. The journalist, among a group of
reporters covering the ceremony, noted that the blast came "just as things
seemed to be getting better" in Mogadishu, an appraisal born in part by the
theater's reopening last month two decades after it closed amid the nation's
violent upheaval.

The blast killed Aden Yabarow Wiish, president of the Somali Olympic
Committee, and Said Mohamed Nur, chief of the country's football federation,
according to news
reports. Several others were reported dead.

Initial reports said at least four journalists suffered serious
injuries and were being treated
at hospitals in the capital. Local journalists told CPJ that Said Shire Warsame
of Shabelle
TV sustained burns across his body, while Radio Kulmiye reporter Ahmed
Ali Kahiye suffered internal bleeding. Ayaan Abdullahi of S24 TV suffered head, stomach and leg injuries,
they said, while Somali Channel TV
reporter Hamdi Mohamed Hassan sustained head and leg injuries.

"Despite reports of improving conditions in Mogadishu, this attack
shows that civilians, including journalists, remain exceedingly vulnerable," said
CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes. "Somalia remains the region's most
dangerous nation for the press."

The re-emergence of sports and other forms of entertainment, including
the reopening of the national theater, had been seen as evidence of improvement
after government and African Union forces ousted Al-Shabaab from the capital
last year.

In Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia, Al-Shabaab has continued its
attacks on civilians, including journalists. In 2012, militants are believed
responsible for the killings of journalists Ali Ahmed Abdi in
Galkayo and Abukar
Hassan Mohamoud in Mogadishu, and the non-fatal shooting of Moyhadin
Hassan in Mogadishu. Somalia is Africa's most dangerous country for the
press, according to CPJ research.

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